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FEW SUGGESTIONS 



THE PERSONAL LIBERTY LAW 



"SECESSION" 



(so caklkd). 



IN A LETTER TO A FRIEND. 



BOSTON: 

PRINTED BY JOHN WILSON AND SON, 

22, School Street. 

1861. 



TKomu^^ 3en \ am'.n Frank' 



in 



FEW SUGGESTIONS 



THE PERSOML LIBERTY LA¥ 



AND 



"SECESSION" 



(so CALLED). 



IN A LETTER TO A FRIEND. 



v 



/ 



BOSTON: 

PRINTED BY JOHN WILSON AND SON, 
22, School Stkket. 

1861. 






in £xcJiii 






V 



LETTER. 



My dear Sir, — In compliance with your sugges- 
tion, I venture to put in the form of a letter a few 
thoughts upon the subject of our conversation a 
few days since. I must write with the pressure of 
other duties upon me ; but I will not say, without re- 
flection. No thoughtful man, at a time like this, could 
have failed to reflect upon tlie interests of his coun- 
try, and the duty he owed to it. For brevity's sake, I 
must state conclusions rather than arguments. You 
wished for my opinions, and I give them frankly. 

The first question which honest men are now ask- 
ing themselves is, AVhat may fairly be required of 
us '? and the second is, What may we fairly require 
of others '? 

This much may be fairly required of us, citizens of 
Massachusetts, — that we sliould be thoroughly loyal 
to the Union, if we mean to preserve it ; and faithful to 
the Constitution, if we mean to uphold and enforce it. 
We cannot, in common honesty, insist that others shall 
do what Ave are not ready to do ourselves. In this 
great controversy, which has already assumed the form 



of civil war, there is but one issue to be settled ; and 
that is, whether the Constitution and laws of the 
United States are, and are to be, the supreme law of 
the land. Do we mean to accept that issue, and abide 
by it, now and hereafter 1 That is a plain question, to 
which we are bound in all frankness to give a plain 
answer. If we say, " Yes, God helping us, we do," 
then our obvious duty, I submit, is to examine our- 
selves, and, if we have been in error, to correct it. If 
there are laws upon our statute-book, which, in the 
letter or the spirit^ conflict with the Constitution and 
laws of the Union, we ought promptly to repeal them. 
A word as to the fair mode of looking at these sta- 
tutes ; for every thing depends upon the way of putting 
things. It is not to see whether, by any possible inge- 
nuity of construction, they can be held not to violate 
the letter of the Constitution or laws of the United 
States. There is a mode of testing the constitutionality 
of a statute which is offensive to good sense. It is to 
overlook its obvious design in the search of some re- 
mote possible contingency in which it may be valid ; to 
emasculate a statute in order to give it validity, take out 
the very breath of its life, and then say the body is very 
quiet and harmless. Judicial tribunals must some- 
times measure the exact legal force of a penal statute ; 
weigh it in scales which the weight of a feather may 
turn. But these statutes touch the domain of public 
law, afl'ect the interests of States ; and their validity 
will be settled by statesmen and jurists and the people 
at large, not by any refinements of construction, but 



upon their general and obvious scope, purpose, and 
spirit. 

A single suggestion as to the proper time for re- 
vising these laws. If it is right to revise them, now 
is the time. "Now" is always the seasonable time to 
do right. If the revision can ever do any good, it is 
now. The intimation, that we shall be thought to 
have acted under a threat, has no foundation in fact ; 
nor is it of the least moment if it had. The man 
who fears to do right lest his motives be misconstrued 
becomes a coward to avoid being thouglit one, and 
loses his self-respect to win the respect of others. 

You have known, my dear sir, that I fully sympa- 
thize with the people of ^Massachusetts in their just 
and righteous aversion to the Fugitive-slave Law of 
1850. It was industriously meant to be offensive. I 
have never seen the man in this Commonwealth, who, 
whatever his opinion of its validity, did not regard it 
as unnecessarilv harsh and rigorous. It fails of effect 
from its great severity. Nay, I should go further, and 
should not hesitate to say, were I not concluded by 
judicial authority, that the law, in many of its essen- 
tial features, is in conflict with the Constitution of the 
United States. Never has a constitutional provision 
been so tortured by judicial construction as that clause 
in relation to fugitives from service. But the law has 
been held valid by those who had the rightful power 
to pass upon its validity; and, as a good citizen, I must 
bow to its authority. My oath does not restrict me to 
the support of the Constitution " as I understand it." 



With these feehngs and convictions in relation to 
the Fugitive-slave Law of 1850, I have, nevertheless, 
always been of the opinion, that every attempt to soften 
the rigor of the law, to supply its defects, to relieve 
its injustice, or to obstruct its operation, by State legis- 
lation, would be utterly vain and futile. It is only 
kicking against the pricks. The wise and prudent 
thing would have been, to have waited until we had t^ 

power to soften the rigors of the law on the spot of 
its origin, in the place of its birth. In that effort we 
should have had the aid of wise and good men in all 
parts of the country. 

AVe are held in double trust. We are not only citi- 
zens of Massachusetts, but of the United States. The 
people framed the Constitutions of both. 

The government of the United States acts, not ■ 

upon the State, nor upon us as citizens of the 
State, but upon us as citizens of the United States. 
The Constitution of the United States, and the 
laws made under it, are our supreme law, — the 
supreme law of the land ; and the judges in every 
State are bound by them, " any thing in the con- 
stitution or laws of any State to the contrary not- 
withstanding." No human ingenuity can contrive a 
State law or ordinance which can defeat, or fairly 
shield us from, a law of the United States, which the 
courts of the United States have declared to be valid. 
I speak not of what may be done by indirection, but 
of the fair, legitimate effect of the State law. The 
greater its apparent strength, the greater would be its 



real weakness. These are plain, and, to the legal 
mind, obvious truths. 

In the light of them, let us look at the statutes of 
which complaint is made. I have not the slightest 
disposition to exaggerate their faults. I cordially re- 
spect the spirit of humanity and the love of the old 
common-law muniments of freedom which character- 
ize them. 

There is no doubt, also, that, in a legal view, very 
undue importance has been attached to them by wor- 
thy citizens of other States as well as our own. 

In considering these statutes, statesmen even seem 
to have lost sight of the distribution of powers under 
our written constitutions and frames of government, 
and the relation of the judicial to the legislative de- 
partment. An act of Parliament is a law. An act of 
our Legislature may or may not be a law. It is not a 
law if held to be invalid by the judicial department ; 
and it must be so held if in conflict with the Consti- 
tution of the State, or the Constitution and laws of 
the United States. 

\ Now, there never has been a day or an hour in 
Massachusetts, when the arrest of any fugitive from 
service has been obstructed by any law of Massachu- 
setts ; that is, by any statute recognized and enforced 
by its judicial tribunals. ' 

May I not be pardoned for saying that there is not 
a State in the Union whose judiciary has been more 
faithful to the Constitution of the United States than 
our own 1 — upholding the laws made under that Con- 



8 



stitution, when God only knew how bitter was the 
struggle between the man and the magistrate. By no 
law or judicial decree of the Commonwealth have the 
rights of any one master, in any one case, been in 
the least degree impaired. Nor could they be to-day, 
unless w^e suppose (what the history of the State does 
not authorize us to suppose) that the judicial depart- 
ment will be false to its duty. I am speaking now of 
the legal, and not the moral, aspect of the case. 

Nor can the Commonwealth be justly said to have 
been guilty of any breach of the national " compact," 
if that word can be fitly applied to the Constitution of 
the United States. There clearly could be ilo breach 
of the compact by an act of the Legislature which was 
not upheld by its judicial and su]3ported by its execu- 
tive department. 

To say that the State of Massachusetts has, by her 
legislation, broken the Constitution of the United 
States, is, with great deference, a contradiction in 
terms. As matter of law, the thing is impossible ; 
for a conflict of the statute of a State with the Con- 
stitution or laws of the United States brings the sta- 
tute directly under the cognizance of the Federal 
judiciary, by whose action it is at once shorn of its 
power. 

The word " compact " is not applicable to the Con- 
stitution of the United States. The Constitution is not 
a compact between the States, or the people of the 
several States. It is a frame of government, ordained 
and established by "the people of the United States;" 



9 



of limited sphere it may be, but in that s})lu"ie su- 
preme. The statute passed by a State Legishiture in 
conflict with that Constitution is itself broken by the 
collision, and not the Constitution, — the hammer, 
and not the anvil. 

This is not, my dear sir, mere verbal criticism, but 
matter of vital principle ; for it is, as you well know, 
upon the double ground that the Constitution is a 
compact which a State is capable in law of breaking, 
and that the statutes of Massachvisetts and of other 
Free States are breaches of the compact, that Southern 
statesmen attempt to justify secession. That Consti- 
tution is not a fragile compact, but an infrangible 
government. If such statutes exist, they are only 
futile attempts to do what, by law or ordinance, a 
State cannot do, — abrogate or impair a law para- 
mount to its own. The moment the conflict is seen, 
the statute disappears. There is nothing left but 
written or printed words, signifying nothing, efi"ecting 
nothing. 

If these views are sound, the retention upon our 
statute-book of any provisions which tend to obstruct 
or defeat the Fugitive-slave Law, or mitigate its rigors, 
is an idle ceremony. If they cannot do this, they are 
useless ; if they can do it, they are void. Before they 
can do it, you must omit from the Constitution of the 
United States, which you print with your statutes, 
these solemn provisions : — 

" This Constitution and the laws of the United 
States, which shall be made in pursuance thereof . . . 



10 



shall be the supreme law of the land ; and the judges 
of every State shall be bound thereby, any thing in the 
Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary not- 
withstanding." 

" The judicial power (of the United States) shall 
extend to all cases, in law or equity, arising under the 
Constitution, the laws of the United States, and 
treaties made, or which shall be made, under their 
authority." 

In the examination of our statutes which have rela- 
tion to fugitives from service, I have found but one 
provision, which, as matter of strict law, appears 
to me to be in conflict with the Constitution and 
laws of the United States. That is in the 19th, 
20th, and 21st sects, of chap. 144: of the Gene- 
ral Statutes. If, by the fair construction of these 
sections, the court to whom a writ of habeas corpus 
is returnable, must or may, when it appears by the 
return that the person whose restraint is in question 
is claimed as a fugitive from service, proceed to try 
the issues of fact, although it also appears that the 
prisoner was in the custody of the marshal of the 
United States or his deputy, under a warrant or cer- 
tificate duly issued, the validity of the provisions 
cannot, in my judgment, be maintained ; and this, 
I think, is the fair, though, I will not say, necessary 
construction of these sections. The ground upon 
which they may perhaps be maintained is, that the 
custody of the marshal, under the warrant, constitutes 
an imjjlied exception to the statute. But, if this con- 



11 



structioii wore iidoptcd, it i.s obvious the l;iw would 
bo of little ])i'artical value to tlio fugitive. It is uiado 
valid by takiug froiu it its ofFectivc force iu the only 
cases likely to arise. 

The object of these provisions is to give to the 
alleged fugitive from service the trial by jury, which 
is not secured by the law of the United States. If 
the provision was valid and effectual, I frankly say, I 
would not repeal it : I would rather imbed it iu the 
Constitution of the Commonwealth. But it is ineffec- 
tual under the law as decided. No judge could 
enforce it, so as to take the prisoner from the custody 
of the marshal, and try the issues of fact, who is 
faithful to his duty, and the laws of which he is the 
servant. 

I cannot assent to the construction of the sixty-second 
section of this law, which holds that a person honestly 
claiming his slave may be subjected to an ignominious 
punishment by a misapprehension or mistake of his 
rights, or a failure to maintain them. Applying to this 
section the settled rules of construction for criminal or 
penal statutes, such result, I respectfully submit, can- 
not be reached. It is the removal of a person from the 
Commonwealth who is not held to labor or service, on 
" the pretence " that he is so held to labor or service, 
or " with the intent to subject him'' to labor or service 
not due, that is made an offence under the statute. 
It is the holding-out of a false claim, a pretence, and 
the intent to subject one to service not due, which the 
statute punishes. Yet as jurists, for whom wo all have 



12 



profound respect, seem to think the statute suscep- 
tible of another construction, and as the meaning of 
all penal statutes should be as free from doubt as pos- 
sible, the section should be so amended as to render 
it certain that it applies only to claims made in bad 
faith, falsely made. 

Nor do I understand, that, under the sixty-fourth 
and sixty-fifth sections of this statute, the volunteer 
militia of the Commonwealth cannot be used to pro- 
tect the officers of the United States, in the streets 
of our towns and cities, from lawless violence. The 
volunteer militia are not to act in any manner in "the 
seizure, detention, or rendition," of a fugitive from 
service ; but they may do, nay, more, must do, under 
the statutes, exactly what they did in the Burns case, 
— preserve, at all hazards, the public peace. 

Under the provisions of chap. 16-i of the General 
Statutes, the militia may be called out by the mayor, 
and other officers therein designated, to protect the 
peace of the city, in case of any riot, actual or threat- 
ened ; and, in such event, officers and soldiers are 
bound to obey, and are exempted from any penalty 
for obedience (chap. 164, Ela vs. Smith, 5 Gray, 121). 
I see no ground for supposing that the statutes have 
modified the law, stated so clearly in this case by the 
present Chief-Justice of the Commonwealth. 
\ But, in giving the legal construction to these sec- 
tions, are they not divested of their power, and left 
of little practical value? Are not the provisions of 
the Personal-libertv Bill of 1855 which remain, so 



n 



13 



shorn of their strength, of their legal ra]iafity for 
good or evil, that the most sensible thing that can be 
done is simply to repeal them ? As they stand, and 
mnst be construed, they mock tlie alleged fugitive 
with, a false show of protection, with the shadow of a 
shield ; keeping the word of promise to his car, but 
breaking it to his hope. 

The best thing that can be done with the remains 
of the statute of 1855 is to lay them upon the altar of 
the country. It does not require a great sacrifice ; 
and it is our country. 

Incapable of substantial legal good, they do much 
political and moral evil. 

They are not, in their spirit, loyal to the Union. 
They tend to bring into conflict our relations to the 
State and the United States, to w^hich we are alike 
bound, and must be alike faithful. 

They are unjust to the citizens of the United States, 
who feel that they must obey the laws of the United 
States, and that the State cannot fairly subject them 
to any disability or distrust even for such fidelity. 

They disturb the friendly relations which w^ould 
otherwise exist between us and the friends of the 
Union in the Southern States. 

They strengthen the hands, they encourage the 
hearts, of the enemies of the Union. They are made 
the occasion, if not the cause, the pretence, if not the 
reason, for the attempts to sever that Union. They 
furnish a pretext, a seeming apology, for treason. 

The ground of objection to these statutes is their 



u 

apparent design to obstruct a law of the United 
States, — an iron law, it may be, but a laiv. Their 
real and humane purpose was to give to the rights of 
the feeble and humble the protection which the law 
of the United States failed to give. They can legally 
effect neither the apparent design nor their real 
purpose. And the difficulty, in my judgment, is 
intrinsic, and results from the fact, that a law of the 
United States, held to be valid by the judiciary of 
the United States, is the supreme law of the courts 
of Massachusetts ; and no State law can either get 
over it or around it./ 

The only place to seek the modification of the 
Uugitive-slave Law is on the floor of Congress ; and 
we need not despair of such a result. The just 
and reasonable modifications to be effected are, that 
the alleged fugitive shall, from the time of his arrest, 
be in the custody of the courts of the United States, 
both in the State where he is seized and that to which 
he is returned ; that, before he shall be delivered 
into the custody of the claimant, he shall have the 
right to trial by jury, freely and without purchase, 
under rules of evidence to be prescribed by Congress ; 
the most essential of which would be the presumption 
of freedom, and the right to meet the witnesses against 
him face to face. 

Having done what may fairly be required of us, we 
may inquire what may fairly be required of others. 

I have already stated the issue before the country. 
It must be settled now. Let us not deceive ourselves. 



15 



Let us not disj^-uisc tlio vv:\\ daiii^crs hc'loro us. 11" 
secession is insisted on. cixil war is inevitable. 

We were Colonics of (Jreat Britain. — separate, 
distinct, jealous Colonies. Under tlic ojjpression of 
the niotluM--country, we grew and ripened into one 
national life. 13y the declaration of independence, 
the Colonies became, not separate and distinct nations, 
but one nation. Under the Continental Congress, the 
Revolutionary Government, even under the confede- 
ration, the great attributes of sovereignty were in tlie 
United States, thirteen States, one nation, — Eplurihus 
iinum. 

"To all general purposes" (says Mr. Jay in the 
"Federalist"), "we have uniformly been one people ; 
each individual citizen everywhere enjoying the same 
national rights, privileges, and protection. As a nation, 
we have made peace and war ; as a nation, we have 
vanquished our common enemies ; as a nation, we 
have formed alliances and made treaties, and entered 
into various compacts and conventions with foreign 
States" ("Federalist," No. 2). 

The " people of the United States, to form a more 
perfect union, to establish justice, insure domestic tran- 
(piillity, provide for the common defence, promote 
the (general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty 
to themselves and their posterity," ordained and esta- 
blished the Constitution of the United States, 'i'hc^y 
established a government, with no provision for its 
termination, without limitation of time, for themselves 
and their posteritj/, — a government clothed with spe- 



J\ 



16 

cific powers, but in its sphere supreme. There is no 
clause or word in the Constitution which looks to sepa- 
ration. The government established by the Constitu- 
tion is a perpetual government, with provisions for its 
amendment, none for its destruction ; with a door for 
new States to come in, but none for old ones to go 
out. 

You may recollect, that in the Convention of the 
people of New York, called to act upon the adop- 
tion of the Constitution, Mr. Lansing moved to annex 
to the ratification a reservation of the right of 
New York to withdraw from the Union within a cer- 
tain number of years, if the amendments proposed by 
the New- York Convention were not adopted. Hamil- 
ton declared the reservation was inconsistent with the 
Constitution, and would not be a ratification. He j 

wTote to Madison for his opinion upon the possibility '■ 

of the State being received on that plan. Madison 
wrote, that the adoption, with reservation of a right to 
withdraw, would not make New York a member of 
the Union, and that she could not be received on that 
basis. " The Constitution requires an adoption in toto 
and for ever'' 

South Carolina has, it is said, seceded. It is quite 
plain, from the discussions of the Convention, that ^ 

there is no man in her borders that knows what 
secession means, or what South Carolina is after 
secession. If she is the nation of South Carolina, 
can any one tell us when and by what process she 
became so I She had not, before the Constitution was 



17 

adopted, the attributes of a nation. Has she ac- 
quired tlicni while under the Constitution, while 
every strictly national function has been exercised by 
a government paramount to her own { 'i'lic people of 
this country are not to.be beguiled by words: they 
will look at things. Secession has vo lei/aJ meaning. 
It is but another name for rebellion or revolution : 
whether rebellion or revolution, must depend upon its 
success or failure. If it be any thing, it is but a pro- 
cess by which a State may forego all the privileges of 
the Union, leaving her people still liable to all its 
obligations and duties. 

No provision of the Constitution, no law of the 
United States, is abrogated or affected by the " Ordi- 
nance " of South Carolina. No citizen of the United 
States in South Carolina is exempted from any the 
least of his duties under the Constitution and laws of 
the United States. The Constitution and laws of the 
United States act directly upon him, and not through 
the State upon him. They are the supreme law ; 
and the act of the State, ordinance, or statute, which 
conflicts with that supreme law, shrivels into a nul- 
lity. To attempt to defeat it by a resolution is 
folly. To attempt to defeat the National Government 
by organized resistance, by force of arms, is treason. 
To kill an officer of the United States when in the 
discharge of his legal duty is murder. This is plain 
language: we cannot afford to use any other. Se- 
cession is rebellion, without the manliness that should 
attend it. It is an attempt to get by legal craft 



18 

what can only be got by force of arms. The Con- 
stitution and Union are not to be shot down by paper 
bullets ; and they are not statesmen who think so. 

Utterly denying the existence of any right of 
secession, I think, with Henry Clay, " that the at- 
tempt to exercise it ought to be resisted to the last 
extremity." 

If the Constitution is a compact which every State 
is capable of breaking, whose obligations every State 
may throw off at its pleasure, it is not worth pre- 
serving. We believe it, the great mass of the people 
of this country believe it to be a wiser, better, nobler 
thing, a frame of government capable of amend- 
ment in the mode itself provides ; capable of being 
overthrown only by revolution, only by successful 
revolution. Men may, it is true, for just cause, by 
revolution, change or overthrow government. It is 
also true, that men may maintain and uphold govern- 
ment for just cause ; and it is just cause when their 
only rational hopes of peace, of security, and of well- 
regulated liberty, for themselves and their children, 
are bound up with it. I am very sorry there are not 
other ways to vindicate the Constitution and the laws 
but by force of arms ; but I see no way of meeting 
force but by force. If men tear down from the fort 
of my country the flag of my country, I honestly be- 
lieve that you and I have a right to help restore it if 
we can, — to give it again to the breeze, with all its 
stripes and all its stars. 

The duty of maintaining just government is as 



If) 



sacred and l)iiHling as that of" maintainm*^ our hcartlis 
and altars : it is the saiiio thini;. 

If it he said that it will he inipossihle to maintain 
the Union if other States secede, the plain answer 
is, If it he impossible, our duty is at end. But 
I do not believe it impossible. Upon the simi)lc 
issue, whether the laws of the Union are to be 
maintained, and its flag upheld, nine-tenths of the 
freemen of this country are with us. Tlic opinion 
of the civilized world is with us. Moreover, God 
governs in the affairs of men, and will be with us 
as he was with our fathers. 

There is a sensibility, which borders on fear, on this 
question of resort to force. Freedom is a blessing : 
license is not. Government is a necessity : a firm, 
vigorous government is a necessity. " Influence is 
not government" (Washington.) That only is govern- 
ment which can command obedience and enforce it. 
The existence of society and of social order is possible 
on no other theory. 

But what, you may ask, is the duty of the National 
Government, after such an ordinance has been passed I 
The general answer is obvious : What it was before it 
was passed, — to enforce in every part of the Union, 
South Carolina included, the Constitution and laAvs of 
the United States. The National Government can 
never know of such a thing as secession. She has no 
legal capacity to hear or comprehend it. She can 
know of rebellion, and must govern herself accord- 
ingly- 



20 

But what is practicable and reasonable in such an 
exigency] All possible and long-suffering forbear- 
ance consistent with the execution of the laws. But 
the revenue may and must be collected. No vessel 
can enter or leave ports of the United States but in 
conformity to the laws. In places where the United 
States have exclusive jurisdiction by the cession of the 
State, the jurisdiction must be maintained. 

But this will result in civil war. That war is al- 
ready begun. No man loves peace more than I do ; 
but I say deliberately, war, even civil war, is better 
than to give up this glorious inheritance from our 
fathers, the noblest government on earth, Mithout a 
struggle, or to leave the struggle, that belongs to us, 
to our children. I see no reasonable hope for ijeace 
hut within the pale of the Constitution as it is, and in 
obedience to its mandates. 

I have no hope in saving the Union by amending 
the Constitution. The powers of the National Govern- 
ment over every matter in dispute are ample. My 
only hope is in the moderate, firm, just, and equitable 
administration of the Constitution as it is. If we sever 
in peace, not many years will elapse before we shall 
have war. Slavery will create greater causes of dif- 
ference and strife after separation than now. De- 
mands will be made by the Slave States for the 
extradition of fugitives from service : the Free States 
will never consent. They will make discriminating 
duties ao-ainst us : the Free States will not submit. 
The Slave States will rc-open the African slave-trade : 



■2\ 

wc shall, ore long, unite with all Christian States to 
exterminate the traffic. — to sweep it from the high- 
■vvay of nations. 

I am, you -well know, no partisan; and have had no 
connection with party politics for many years. Upon 
full consideration of my duty in that regard, I voted 
for Abraham J.incoln: 1 have no misgiving about 
that vote. In view of all that has taken place. I 
would ixivc it to him to-morrow with alacrity. If he 
pursues the wise, moderate, and national course and 
policy which his past life and opinions and his firm 
and manly character lead me to expect, he will have 
mv loyal, unwavering support in the execution of his 
great, and, at this crisis, solemn and momentous duty, 
— that of executing in every part of this indivisible 
republic the Constitution and laws of our yet glorious 
Union. I feel, that, in my humble sphere, I can do 
him no better service than to do what I may to remove 
all stumbling-blocks from his path. These statutes 
are among them. 

Hoping for better things, seeking, in all the honor- 
able ways of peace, the adjustment of our present dif- 
ficulties, we ought to prepare for the worst. " Faint 
hearts are usually false hearts." For our country, for 
our children, for the cause of well-regulated liberty, 
we have no right to do or suffer less than our fathers. 
It cost seven years of suffering to secure these blessings. 
Seven years, if need be, will be wisely spent in the strug- 
gle to maintain them. To suppose that the people of 
the Free States will consent to give up such a go^ orn- 



22 

ment, and the infinite blessings it secures to the country, 
without a struggle, is the saddest of mistakes. This go- 
vernment is a great and sacred trust. We shall be 
false to country, to freedom, to humanity, if we con- 
sent to give it up till the struggle is seen to be utterly 
hopeless. 

Very truly your friend, 

BENJ. F. THOMAS. 

Boston, Jan. 1, 1861. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



011 895 812 3 



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